Deer and Eagles

[dirtytough]

Last year while hunting late season deer in ND I watched a golden eagle go after a whitetail buck. The buck evaded the eagle and took off.

Fast forward to this last week. I was in the high country of Colorado and watched an eagle go after a group of does one afternoon. The 5 does evaded the eagle and then ran/trotted about 500 yards across the hillside and resumed feeding. The next morning I was glassing the same hillside. There was a group of 4 bucks I was watching on it. All the sudden an eagle tried attacking the biggest buck in the group. The bucks kind of scattered and the buck the eagle was after kind of danced/bucked on the hillside. It lasted about 20 seconds then the eagle flew off.

I glassed this hillside for 5 days. There were 9 does that would feed on the hillside and I never saw a fawn up there. There were some does and fawns down below tree line but no fawns high in the alpine.

I am starting to think that eagles do more damage to the deer population then people realize in certain areas.

What do you guys think? Anyone ever noticed something similar?

 

[itsTyrtruion]

I have seen videos of eagles catching big horns and deer and basically push/throw off cliffs for a big snack at the bottom of a canyon. nature isn't for the faint of heart.

 

[FreeRange]

I don't doubt it at all. Saw a study on an eastern Sierra deer herd that stated 5% of fawn mortality was due to eagles while 15 due to lions, 10 to bobcats, 53 to coyotes and 16 to bear. There are a lot of deer in that herd so 5% is no small number.

 

[wyodog]

I've seen an eagle kill a buck antelope.